Against The True Gods-Chapter 140: The Past, Present and Future(V)

What Caine met was nothing like what he’d expected.

What formed in front of him, unlike before, was a copy of the present him, but not just any copy.

WHOOOSH!

The figure finished forming, and at the same time, upon the marble table separating them, a chessboard appeared.

Long black hair, elusive silver eyes, a tall, tempered frame draped in white robes—it was him.

Caine met his clone’s gaze, and the clone met his. It was strange. While he could tell this was a perfect replica of him, he also knew something was off.

There was something uncanny about this clone… something eerie and inhuman.

Uriel walked over to the marble table’s side, intently looking at them both before speaking.

He pointed at the chessboard. "A Summoner’s Gambit, or in simple words, Chess Necro-Games."

"A simple game of chess played on four dimensions that involves one’s summons."

He paused, allowing the announcement to settle before continuing.

"Past and Present have blurred into one. Now, the Present must be reflected through clear and muddy waters to determine truth from falsehood."

Slowly, he soared into the skies just as chess pieces began to appear on the board.

"You may begin."

***

Unlike Caine’s previous clash with Oldest, one filled with tension, insults, and adrenaline, this encounter was extremely tame. Stay tuned to novelbuddy

Quiet, silent, and unmoving—the two sat, their gazes locked on the board before them as their fingers, bound by strings, moved at speeds too fast for most to follow.

Mirror, as Caine had decided to call this copy of himself, didn’t utter a word. Its presence was imposing in its silence, oppressive in its absence of sound.

Caine didn’t speak either, but for entirely different reasons.

He was losing.

Badly.

A Summoner’s Gambit had relatively simple rules, rules that mirrored those of classical chess, at their foundation and core at least.

The goal was the same: to trap the King, which, in this case, would be the summoner—the players themselves.

The minds of the summoners were projected into the board, into an illusory battlefield where their summons would wage war.

Their armies were divided into sixteen specific smaller segments, reflecting the sixteen distinct pieces of the board.

Each segment of their army was restrained and locked by a set of complicated and dynamic laws.

Dynamic in the sense that these laws changed and adapted based on the circumstances and environment of a clash.

These laws could shift based on which segment clashed against an opposing segment and what ally segment stood near an ally or enemy during a specific clash.

The laws could change to favor one side or another depending on how skillfully a player danced and tiptoed around their limits and definitions.

Via these dynamic laws, countless offensive, defensive, and passive combinations could be made, along with even more complex tactics and layered approaches, all with the single purpose of bypassing all enemy segments to trap their King.

Each summoner, or King, had thirty-three lives per round, with each round netting one a point and the game ending when one reached three points.

Every time a King was trapped, a life was lost, and once all of one’s lives ran out, they lost the round.

Caine had already lost the first round in less than an hour and was already down to his sixth life in this second round, in barely half an hour.

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Meanwhile, Mirror hadn’t lost a single life.

***

It was only now that Caine fully understood what was so off and uncanny about this clone of his.

It was him, the present him, but… at full potential.

It was a version of himself with almost no flaws, a version of himself who’d taken the time to fully and properly master all of Caine’s abilities and enlightenment.

A version of him that had every single facet of his power mastered and understood.

And while it was true that Caine had undergone massive change through the trial that fractured his mind, he’d barely had the time to let it all settle in.

By the time he finished one battle to the death, he was plunged into another, and then another, and another. It was a relentless and exhausting tempo that left no room to breathe or think.

But it didn’t stop there. Caine could feel that this version of himself was actively relying on its affinity to Fate. Or, more accurately, it had mastered this affinity to such a high degree that Fate itself moved to help and light the path ahead.

It was as if he was facing a part of Fate itself.

His segmented armies of summons were routinely dissected and torn to shreds, the many layers of his offensive tactics read like an open book and countered before he could react.

His defensive tactics were peeled away with absurd ease, Mirror somehow always finding flaws to exploit and using them to steal a life from him.

Mirror’s army moved with coordination and calculated precision that overwhelmed Caine.

Akin to a hive mind, they moved as one entity, attacked as one blade, retreated as a singular shadow, and defended as one grand, impenetrable shield.

Caine’s oh-so-sharp mind was ridiculed and read like an open book as Mirror performed pre-moves and counterattacks dozens of plays before Caine even thought of them and put them into action.

Caine felt like a defenseless sheep being shepherded one way or another, to the sharp whims of a herd dog loyally following the will of its master.

Nothing seemed to work.

As the seconds passed and he lost life after life, a pressure began to build in his mind.

Caine exhaled a breath and focused.

’Let’s take this step by step.’

He had tried the most obvious solution—using Mirror as a template to absorb all his perfect advancements and even out the playing field. And, in truth, it worked.

Just not fast enough. As Caine studied Mirror and slowly devoured his skills, he was still losing. Mirror was actively adapting and growing just as he was, making it a never-ending loop where he’d eventually run out of time and lives.

So this path wasn’t viable.